Sir Ted's blog post - Crossdressing and Transgression

Most people, regardless of gender or sexual persuasion, would find the first photo erotic, sexy, cute, or at least pleasant to look at.

Most people, regardless of gender or sexual persuasion, would find the second photo odd, laughable, perverse, or at least unpleasant to look at.

I wonder why.

I claim no moral highground. My gut level responses are as I describe them above. Like most, I find the image of a woman with male clothing to be intriguing and fun to look at. Like most, my first reaction to an image of a man in women's undergarments is one of at least vague displeasure.

Part of that, of course, is that I'm a heterosexual male, and will be more likely to find a photo of a semi-clothed woman appealing than that of a semi-clothed man, but that can only explain part of it.

No, there's something deepseated in our (i.e. Western) society that trains us to have very different reactions to crossdressing. I think the reason for this is the relation between gender and power.

Let's look at a more obvious example that will set up this thought. How many times have we all seen toddlers scampering around in their parents' clothes, playing "dress up," and had our hearts warmed? There is, in fact, whole genres of greeting cards and kitchy statuary based on the "awwwww" factor elicited by tikes in grown-up clothes.

But does the opposite work? If we see an image of an adult in a diaper, our reaction isn't "awwwwww" but gales of laughter, incredulity, and probably a bit of nervousness. (By the way, this reaction would be amplified if the adult in a nappy was a man rather than a woman.)

Why so? Because it makes a certain sort of sense for children to "play at" being adults--to aspire to adulthood. After all, adults are the ones with power. It makes sense that those without power would enjoy taking on the trappings of those with power. It even makes sense that those of us with power would enjoy watching them do this (assuming, of course, that there was no true threat to our own power--if the little tykes dressing up in mommie's high heels actually stood a chance of running the world, we'd find their play much less charming).

But it strikes us as ridiculous for anyone with power to debase themselves by taking on the trappings of those lower on the power hierarchy than themselves. Why would anyone do that? Not only does it just seem silly, but I suggest it disturbs us on a deeper level--it represents a far greater challenge to our understanding of the accepted power structures of our society than does the image of the powerless esteeming to become powerful. The child in Daddy's tie reminds us (assures us, in fact) of the stability of the permanence and acceptance of all involved of the adult/child power relatonship. Daddy in a nappy? Another story altogether. It suggests a questioning, or even rejection of established power hierarchies that makes the world feel less secure. Because this reaction is usually subconscious and fleeting, it usually takes the form not of consciously felt fear, but in the "safety valve" through which we vent much of our subliminal anxieties: laughter.

Now,let's return to the images at the top. I suggest that the reason we find women crossdressing to be sexy, appealing, or at least acceptable is for just the reason that we find children playing "dress up" cute: there's something charming and reassuring about seeing someone at one level of the power structure pay homage to that structure by symbolically (in this case, through clothing) transgress their station and take on the trappings of a higher one. Such an act, while it might seem superficially transgressive, is actually quite conservative. It pays homage to the powers-that-be, acknowledging them and only playfully and momentarily breaking the boundaries within that system.

The man wearing women's clothes, however, is like the adult wearing a diaper: it seems silly, at least in a culture that still associates maleness and power, for a man to take on the trappings of a woman. A man who even symbolically "debases" himself by taking on the trappings of one less powerful strikes us as foolish and, more importantly, to flaunt and challenge the power structure itself. It is disturbing to us in a way that a woman "playing at maleness" isn't.

This is not to say something as obvious as that our society is still sexist in many respects or that maleness is unquestionably a privileged position. It's way, way more complicated than that, and the very association of power with maleness is a double-edged sword in many respects (more on that in a future post).

It *is* to say, however, that power, gender, and sexuality are inextricably linked, and that we collectively tend to react to photographic images that play with this triumverate in ways that are often based not on an utterly neutral and completely individualistic aesthetic, but on the ways we've been taught to (mis)read such images.